Folia Theologica 11. (2000)
László Vanyó: The Patristic Interpretation of 'Redemptio'
20 L. VANYÓ human sphere, a struggle or negotiations, a was between God and Satan and the evil powers. That’s powers this idea was often criticised that the Christus-Victor-conception, by removing the process of redemption into the supernatural sphere, does not take into consideration the specific religious- and ethical sphere of man, the connection between redemption and the individual. The process of redemption sets out of God and returns to Him without a break, because it is God who redeems, who realises the reconciliation, and He establishes the new relation between Himself and the world, Himself and man. It is true that according to the patristic idea it is God who ransoms man from the power of Satan and the demons, but all this realises through His Son, the Word made man, Jesus Christ, and the struggle of Jesus Christ with the demons plays an important role made in redemption. This struggle leads into His crucifixion, by which He gave evidence of His filial fidelity and obedience to His Father. Thus He reconciled man and the world with God. The redemptio is at the same time reconciliatio, that’s why it is not possible to interpret redemptio either as a ransom payed by God to Satan (juristic theory), or as an eluding of Satan’s right to have domination over man (political theory), or as an eluding of Satan (poetic theory). It is also obvious, that the human nature assumed by the Word plays an important role in the redemption. The soteriological idea of the Fathers cannot be classified in rigorously separated categories as if we could speak about cosmic-ontological or ethic-religious ideas independent from each other. The teaching of the Greek and the Latin Fathers cannot be set against each other and it is important for the ocumenism. Otherwise until Saint Augustine the notion of the Latin Fathers was not independent from that of the Greeks and also afterwards was not so original that it could be regarded as a special teaching of redemption. Rather we can say that Augustine himself accepted the classic conception of redemptio-reconciliatio, here and there corrected, here and there added his own ideas. It seems necessary to make a clear distinction between redemptio and reconciliatio. Certainly we can attribute an exclusively juridic content to redemptio if we disregard its inner motive i.e. the reconciliatio which covers the utmost reason of salvation: the divine love. Despite the distinction, the two belong together. Both redemptio and reconciliatio are carried out in a dramatic way. The dramatic character of redemptio means that Christ launches a struggle against the dominations and principalities of this world and through His victory he ransomes man from
